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The End of the Tour

The story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace, right after the publication of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, Infinite Jest. Based on David Lipsky's critically acclaimed memoir.

The film provides a look at envy and celebrity. A Rolling Stone writer who is himself a novelist pitches to his editor the idea of an interview with the latest "Great American Author," David Foster Wallace. The editor agrees and the Rolling-Stone-writer/struggling-novelist, played by Jesse Eisenberg, travels to the Midwest to accompany DFW on the last leg of his INFINITE JEST book tour. This movie wouldn't work if not for the excellent performance of Jason Segel as DFW. I've never read Wallace. I had friends who did, all English majors, and they're devoted to him. The screenplay unfolds with the foreshadowing of Wallace's 2008 suicide. There's no real amazing profundity to the dialogue, except, if you ask me, Wallace's description, toward the end of the movie, of depression. The film got me thinking, "Who was the last 'Great American Author' of Wallace's caliber? Dave Eggers? Michael Chabon?"

Jason Segel as David Foster Wallace and Jesse Eisenberg as David Lipsky tagging along to interview Wallace during the last weekend of his book tour for Infinite Jest. I am quite a fan of both actors, but I must say I did not really like these two together. However, the story was incredibly moving and really shows that Segel is capable of more than goofy comedy. It did feel a little long - about halfway through the story started to drag, but the acting was compelling enough that I stuck it through to the end.

A deep and meaningful film about David Foster Wallace, a writer whose troubled internal workings made him a genius but also resulted in his tragic end, THE END OF THE TOUR touches upon life with its edges overlapping, humour one second and sorrow the next. It is a great watch, one that I had no trouble getting through. It's not a pretentious trudging film. It is paced exactly as it should be and the casting of Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segel is spot on. If you know nothing about Wallace, there is no barrier to entry; the film gives you the background you will need and not in any clunky exposition or narration. I loved THE END OF THE TOUR and would recommend it.

I enjoyed this film very much, and it made me want to read some of David Foster Wallace's work (which it turns out I also enjoy very much). Jason Segal gave an impressive performance, showing range I didn't know he had.

I liked the rapport between them. Insight into getting to really know someone, or not.
I found myself wanting to see the movie through even though it was a lot of talking.
Sometimes you have got to read between the lines.

Quotes

"I think that writing books is a little like raising children, you know? You have to be careful. It's okay to take pride in the work, but I think it's bad for someone to want the glory to reflect back on you."

"So as the Internet grows in the next ten, fifteen years, and virtual reality pornography becomes a reality, we're gonna have to develop some real machinery inside our guts to turn off pure, unalloyed pleasure. Or -- I don't know about you -- I'm gonna have to leave the planet. Because the technology is just gonna get better and better, and it's gonna get easier and easier and more and more convenient and more and more pleasurable to sit alone with images on a screen, given to us by people who do not love us, but want our money. And that's fine in low doses, but if it's the basic main staple of your diet, you're gonna die."

(discussing existential anxiety)
"It may be in the old days what was known as a spiritual crisis: feeling as though every axiom in your life turned out to be false and there was actually nothing. And that you were nothing. And that it's all a delusion and you're so much better than everybody because you can see how this is just a delusion, and you're so much worse because you can't f**king function."